Hurricane Maria winds remain at 110 mph, may increase in coming days

By Thursday, the National Hurricane Center expects Maria to become a major hurricane again, but does not anticipate any path headed to Florida at this time. The storm is expected to turn in a north-northwest direction on Friday.

Update 8 p.m.: Hurricane Maria’s winds remain at 110 mph and may regain strength in the coming days, according to the National Hurricane Center.

As the strong storm makes its way northwest of Puerto Rico, and the core of the storm passing offshore of the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic, the storm will continue it’s northwest path.

The National Hurricane Center said Maria is traveling northwest at 12 mph and should stay on that track for about 36 hours before taking a more northerly path.

Because Maria will be over warm water, forecasters are predicting some restrengthening, but top Maria out at 120 mph before weakening begins over the weekend.

The five-day forecast track shifted slightly east as of the 5 p.m. advisory, moving it farther from the U.S. coastline. Florida is not expected to see direct impacts from Maria.

Update 2 p.m.: Hurricane Maria’s center has moved offshore of Puerto Rico’s northwestern coast with wind speeds down to 115 mph, making it a Category 3 storm.

The National Hurricane Center said an Air Force Hurricane Hunter plane located the center after radar at San Juan went down this morning. Maria is moving northwest at 12 mph and is expected to stay on that path for about two days before making a move north.

Update 11 a.m.: The last radar image received from the San Juan weather service in Puerto Rico was just before 5 a.m. this morning as Category 4 Hurricane Maria moved onshore.

The storm is now over Puerto Rico’s mountainous terrain, causing the eye to become clouded. That makes pinning down an intensity difficult, but the National Hurricane Center estimated Maria still maintains 140-mph winds, keeping it a Category 4 storm.

This satellite image shows Maria’s pinhole eye clouded over as it moves across Puerto Rico’s mountains.

Maria is expected to move off the northern coast of Puerto Rico soon. It will head northwest for the next two days, followed by a turn toward the north.

A restrengthening to 145 mph winds is possible after Maria moves offshore, but an increase in wind shear over the weekend is forecast to begin to break Maria down.

The official forecast calls for Maria to be a 105-mph Category 2 hurricane by Monday.

It’s the first time since 1932 that a Category 4 hurricane has hit the island, threatening widespread flooding, mudslides and deadly storm surge.

As of 7 a.m., Maria was 25 miles west-southwest of Vieques and moving northwest at 10 mph.

The storm’s minimum central pressure was 917 mb.

“It is possible that parts of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands may become uninhabitable for weeks or longer due to the destruction that Maria will cause,” said Joel Myers, founder, president and chairman of AccuWeather. “There is no comparison between what Puerto Rico got before with Irma and what it will get this time with Maria.”

Maria had strengthened to 175 mph winds – a top-end Category 5 hurricane – Tuesday night, but weakened as it closed in on Puerto Rico. At 4 a.m., Maria was still a 160 mph-Category 5 as its eyewall was over Vieques.

An eyewall replacement cycle early this morning enlarged the eye from a beady 10 nautical miles to 30 nautical miles.

“This has likely contributed to some weakening,” hurricane forecasters wrote in their 5 a.m. discussion. “Some weakening is likely while the system corsses Puerto Rico.”

Over the next two days, Maria is expected to remain a Category 4, but on the lower end at 130 mph.

Maria is not expected to directly affect Florida, but its route depends greatly on Jose, which was downgraded to a tropical storm.

Tropical Storm Jose has maximum sustained winds and is located 195 miles south of Nantucket.

Jose is forecast to hold back an area of high pressure developing over the Great Lakes.

That clockwise spinning high pressure would like to move east, but if that happened, forecasters said Maria could track further west and become a concern for the U.S. coastline.

As it is, Jose is providing a side street for Irma to sneak north sooner.

Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist at Weather.com, said this is the first time he’s seen this kind of weather pattern in the two decades he’s been a forecaster.

“Jose is a nuisance along the northeast coast, but if Jose wasn’t there, and that high pressure aloft built farther east, then all of a sudden we have a much bigger threat for the east coast,” Erdman said. “We can’t sound the all-clear completely for the east coast, but there are hopeful signs with this really bizarre sequence of events.”

Storm 2016

About the Author

Kim Miller is the weather reporter for The Palm Beach Post.

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